From 1942 to 1947, he attended the Minneapolis School of Art, where he studied under Alexander Masley, a former student of Hans Hofmann in Munich, Germany.
In 1949, Johnson married Josephine Valenti, an art historian, and moved into a house on 2nd Ave and 2nd Street, which the couple shared with Kahn.
[3] In 1961, Johnson briefly left the city for an artist-in-residence position at Ohio State University.
Upon returning to New York City, Johnson shared a studio with the painter Philip Pearlstein.
In 1964, Johnson was invited by Abstract Expressionist painter Jack Tworkov to teach at Yale,[4] where he served as the Director of Studies Graduate Painting from 1969 to 1974.